PARIS, June 17: French judicial authorities have decided to place under detention a Pakistani national, Ghulam-Mustafa Rama, 64, who is suspected of having provided logistical support to Richard Reid, the British national who has become known as the “shoe-bomber” for having attempted to set off an explosive charge contained in his shoe during a flight last Dec 22 to Miami.

Mr Rama, who is also the founder of the French branch of Markaz Dawa al-Irshad, had already been arrested by French police last Wednesday (June 12) at his home in the Paris suburb of Evry during an early morning raid which also saw the arrest of another, unidentified, Pakistani national, and three Franco-Algerians.

The other arrested Pakistani has been released, say police, while two of the Franco-Algerians have been detained along with Mr Rama. All three are now being accused by the French magistrate — and the country’s principal judicial expert on terrorism — Jean-Louis Bruguiere, of having provided logistical support to Richard Reid, who spent several days in their company prior to his boarding American Airlines flight 063 at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport a few miles north of the Paris neighbourhood where he was housed by Mr Rama and the two Franco-Algerians.

Police say they’re awaiting the results of tests that are being performed in the US on a hair and a fingerprint found on the Penthrite bomb contained in Mr Reid’s shoe, and say they “would not be surprised” if the tests would reveal that they would belong to the three persons at present detained in French prison facilities. As for Mr Reid, he is currently incarcerated in Boston, where he’s awaiting trial before a Federal tribunal.

As for Ghulam-Mustafa Rama, he has lived more than 20 years in Paris, where he operates an important Halal butcher’s shop in the Barbes-Rochechouart district of northern Paris, the same part of the city where Richard Reid was housed, allegedly by Mr Rama and the two Franco-Algerians, and where he used an international telephone call centre, allegedly owned by another Pakistani national who was not detained, to remain in touch with his “superiors” in Peshawar.

French police have already revealed that according to their intelligence, Mr Reid, who had been rebuffed on a previous American Airlines flight to Miami, balked at taking a second flight the following day, fearing this time he would be detained, but was “persuaded,” to use the expression of police, by his contacts in Peshawar — with whom, say the police, he was in “constant touch” during his Paris sojourn — to go through with his “mission,” again to make use of a word utilised by French police.

Of the three men placed under detention by police in special cells — whose whereabouts are being held secret, but whose location most likely is within the confines of La Sante Prison in the southern part of Paris — police say that Mr Rama is considered to be the “kingpin” of the operation to have Mr Reid explode his bomb on board the American Airlines flight, indeed that Mr Rama is being viewed increasingly by the French special police assigned to the anti-terrorism brigade, as the “principal recruiter” in France for the Islamic extremist movements that, in their eyes, abound, notably at Peshawar.

Police say they are now studying the possibility that Mr Rama plays an important role in providing “recruits” for operations in Kashmir.